Police officers in England and Wales pay pension contributions of 12.88% to 14.22% of their pay, the highest of any major public-sector scheme. For a constable that is often the largest deduction on the payslip after income tax. The calculator above shows exactly what it costs. This guide looks at the other side of the ledger: what the Police Pension Scheme 2015 builds for you, and how to weigh it in career decisions.
What each year builds
The 2015 scheme is a career-average defined-benefit scheme. For each year of service you build a pension of one 55.3th of that year's pensionable pay. While you're still serving, that amount is increased each year in line with average earnings growth plus 1.25%, so it tends to grow faster than prices. From your normal pension age, the total is paid as an income for life that rises with inflation.
A constable at pay point 7 on the England and Wales scale, earning £46,044, builds about £833 a year of pension for that year's work. The cost to them is a 13.88% contribution, about £6,391 a year. Because the contribution comes off before income tax, a basic-rate officer's take-home only falls by about 80% of that. The force pays far more: an employer contribution of 35.3% of pay, over £16,000 a year at this salary, which never appears on the payslip.
Why the contribution is worth paying
Building £833 a year of inflation-linked income privately would be very expensive. At retirement, a guaranteed income that rises with inflation typically costs twenty to thirty times the starting income to buy. Each year of police service is therefore building something worth many times the officer's own net contribution. That is why comparisons between police pay and civilian salaries that ignore the pension tend to understate police pay, sometimes by a wide margin.
The scheme also includes protections that private pensions don't: ill-health retirement benefits, and pensions for a spouse or partner if an officer dies. Those are hard to value precisely, but for a job with physical risks they matter.
Promotion, overtime and the tiers
The contribution tiers apply to your whole pensionable pay, not just the slice above each threshold. Moving from £37,035 to just above it raises the rate on all your pay from 12.88% to 13.88%. The calculator above shows where these cliffs fall, and the worked example earlier on this page shows a pay-point crossing.
Overtime is a separate question. It is taxed as normal pay, but it generally isn't pensionable, so it doesn't build pension or count towards your contribution tier. A month with heavy overtime raises your take-home but not your pension. If you're thinking about how overtime affects your retirement, look at your pensionable pay, not your total earnings.
Leaving early
If you leave the police before retirement, the pension you've built stays in the scheme as a deferred pension, revalued until it's paid. It isn't lost, but it usually can't be taken until your State Pension age, which is later than the scheme's normal pension age for serving officers. Anyone considering a move out of policing should get a pension statement first, so they can see what they're keeping and what further years would have added.
Moving between forces
Transferring to another force in England and Wales doesn't break your pension membership, but it can change your pay. London forces pay London Weighting and some forces near London pay a South East allowance, while others pay neither. Because London Weighting for the Met is pensionable, a move into or out of the Met changes both your take-home pay and the pension you build each year. Run both forces' figures through the calculator before deciding, and check whether any allowance is protected for a period after the move.
Next steps
Enter your rank, pay point and force area above to see your take-home pay. For a side-by-side view of police and other public-sector schemes, the public sector take-home pay calculator compares contribution rates, and the compare two salaries calculator helps when weighing a civilian offer.